There’s a difference between knowing something to be true, and KNOWING something to be true. Being told how the world works, versus experiencing reality firsthand. Your mother telling to be careful with the kitchen knife, and the first time you cut your thumb chopping vegetables. Second hand knowledge is comforting - it seems like a cheat code to learn from someone else’s mistakes. But it doesn’t always work. Reading all the books in the world about business won’t make you a good CEO. Learning requires direct experience of truth, not following someone else’s journey. Watching youtube videos won’t teach you how to ride a bike - you have to get out there and fall.

That’s the catch - to experience truth requires failure. You don’t get the GPA you want, you don’t get into the college that you think would change your life, you don’t ace the interview for the job. Failure hurts. It hurts your ego, it hurts your living conditions - it can cost you your life. It would be great to not have to be hurt.

However, growth requires trying something new. Using your mind and body in ways that are foreign to you. Taking action.

And action - be it walking, talking, writing, or making friends - has to be learned. No one is born a master, of anything. Falling down after that first step. Publishing a sentence that’s just too wordy. Fighting with a good friend over something meaningless. It’s all necessary for growth.

To be human is to try. To put yourself out there, day after day, knowing that things aren’t always going to go the way you like. And understanding, deep down, KNOWING, that that is okay. That you are going to try your hardest. Inevitably, you are going to fail. But you are going to pick yourself up, and begin again. Because thats what growth is.